Forgotten
by xMisery-Hunterx
Summary: Left to his own devices, Tony wastes away. Can the rest of the Avenger team figure out the problem and fix what's wrong? Will Tony live to find the answer for himself? eventual ironhawk/whatever their ship name is. TS/CB.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a little hi from little ol' me.. I am branching into other stories/fandoms and this was my first marvel story :D I'm excited tell me what you think.  
**Disclaimer: i do not own this, nor do i make profit

* * *

**Take away the suit and what are you?**

The words rang through his mind and refused to stop. Oh, he gave his best flippant answer but the words caught him in the chest. What was he? Some freak of nature that just lived on an element of his own creation.

He worked with a super soldier, a maniacal green beast, and a Norse god of legends. How could he be the freak? Sure he couldn't shoot a bow or fight hand to hand like Clint and Natasha but his suit-right.

Without the suit he was a man of engineering brilliance and not much else. As soon as he could break away from the group he holed himself up in his lab and didn't leave.

Obi had nearly killed him with his own technology. He couldn't even defend himself against someone that he had known all his life. He had built an arc reactor in a cave in the middle of Afghanistan, but to these people he was simply a moron in a suit.

He nearly died for them all, flying into the portal and not really expecting to return. The team was all smiles as they tiredly ate Shawarma at this torn up little place. It still at him though. The statement made couldn't be taken back and he couldn't escape his own worse enemy, himself. There was nothing he wanted more than to escape from the words that had left the Cap's mouth on the helicarrier but it wouldn't leave him.

He stayed in his lab for 6 days, he didn't even surface for coffee like he did around day 2 on any other long stretch in the lab. And he couldn't say he was surprised when no one showed up at the door of his lab to find him and he didn't feel all that bad when he fell to the floor in a dead faint from lack of sleep, food, and water.

* * *

Natasha was sitting in the living room, curled up on the couch when an alarm started blaring somewhere in the house. She stood up but she couldn't quite figure out what the alarm was for and just sat back down. Watching to see what the others would do, if any of the others noticed and knew what it was for.

* * *

Bruce looked up from his lab notes at the sudden blaring noise and tried to avoid Hulking out in this overly expensive room. The sirens were loud and the Other Guy was less than pleased. He put earplugs in, trying to get the Hulk to calm before he tried to solve the problem.

* * *

Thor sat in the kitchen, scarfing down the glory that he had discovered in the pop tarts. The noise that started blaring scared him. And he may or may not have smashed the counter with mjolnir. He may or may not have had a minor panic attack about the reaction that Lady Jane would have when she found out the damage he had caused to the Man of Iron's kitchen. And he may or may not have completely forgotten about the noise that had startled him in the first place.

* * *

Steve was sitting in a cramped little office at SHIELD HQ across from Coulson when the phone he was given by Stark started to beep insistently in the middle of the meeting. The thing was too much for him to figure out, and in his frustration he broke the little piece of electronics that was connected to the alarm system at the Tower.

* * *

Clint was sitting in the vents of the building when the alarm started going off. He had heard it before, just before Pepper had shown up pissed as hell and went disappearing into the lowest levels of the tower. With a shrug he set off to figure out what on the lower levels had caused the dilemma. He reached the vent that was inside Tony's work space but he didn't see the genius anywhere. He pulled the grate out and dropped down to see what it was in the room that had triggered the alarm.

He spun a full circle but never saw the genius, one of the bots in the corner spun to life and whirred and sounded distraught. Clint became a little worried that he could tell a bot was in distress. The alarm was still blaring.

"Computer-Ja-Whatever you're called. What the hell is going on?" There was no answer, just the blaring of the alarm. The comouter that ran the house wasn't working. Great. Then something seemed to click in Clint's mind.

"Tony? Where the hell are you?" The bot became more active and Clint gave up and walked toward it. When he walked around the workbench he felt his stomach land in his boots.

"Oh God!" He dropped to Tony's side and saw that the arc reactor was still glowing brightly like it should but Tony looked like he had wasted away around it. He checked quickly for a pulse and found a small thready pulse and he admits that he might have panicked for a moment. He picked up the man and frowned at how small he felt in his arms. He found one of the cars that was at the end of the workshop and ran to put Tony inside the passenger seat, before hot-wiring it to life.

It took him less than 3 minutes to get to the hospital, which should have been a twenty minute drive. He probably should have practiced a little more caution than he had about driving Tony to the hospital but he couldn't think of that now. He picked the man up out of the car and ran into the hospital doors.

"Help!" He yelled. He was sure that he could have called Shield and it would have been better, but for some reason it hadn't even crossed his mind. He was a trained killer, with a more than basic knowledge of how to fix problems but this had caught him off guard and so he was left acting like a panicked civilian hoping that everything would turn out okay.

* * *

Pepper had come into the tower like a raging stallion. "Avengers! I don't give a fuck what you are doing! Get down here now!" She was pissed and they were all going to know it. She was terrified that she was going to lose her boss and her closest friend, and even still she was not going to let any of them escape from her more than justified anger.

She had received the health alarm from JARVIS while she was at work and nearly screamed in the middle of a board meeting. Ten minutes later she received a more than panicked call from Agent Barton that Tony was at the hospital and it wasn't looking good.

In short order she had three of the team standing before her, missing only the Captain and the one keeping watch over Tony.

"What the hell kind of team mates are you?" She seethed. The three looked at her in confusion, though Natasha's face was slowly getting stonier.

"What do you mean P-"

"Don't even bother to say my name Dr. Banner. I don't really want to look at any of you right now. You should all be dragged through the flames but I don't have the energy to do more than yell at you. I'm too scared for his life."

"For whose li-"

"YOUR TEAMMATE IS DYING. HE HASN'T SLEPT OR HAD ANY NUTRIENTS FOR 6 DAYS. THE ALARM SET TO HIS VITAL SIGNS IN THE LAB WENT OFF AND ONLY ONE OF YOU CARED ENOUGH TO LOOK FOR HIM." Pepper's voice had risen in volume that she was sure whoever was in the lower levels could hear her with no problems.

"We didn't know it was set to hi-"

"Save it Banner. I really need you to shut up now. You didn't-none of you-" Her voice trailed off and she choked back the sob that tried to escape her throat. She turned on her heel and left them standing there in the living room.

* * *

Fury gave a heavy sigh when the alert that an Avenger was in the hospital showed up on his computer. He tried to refrain from the aggravated groan when he saw Stark's name pull up in the file. He closed down the file and looked back across at Rogers.

"Stark is in the hospital."

"I should go check on him" Steve stood up and was out the door before Fury could say another word.

He hailed a cab and was at the hospital in next to no time; wondering what was wrong with his teammate.


	2. Chapter 2

**So this story. My Lord it has a mind of it's own. The original story that this came from was a 90 word drabble I wrote in class. This all came about in 3 hours last night. Also I feel I should state that there will be inconsistent chapter lengths because my muse loves to hate me. I am writing four stories in four different fandoms all at once... - Hunter!**

**disclaimer: i own nothing, i make no profit.**

* * *

Clint was sitting like an awkward statue in the chair by Tony's bed. Simply staring at him. The doctors that kept coming in to check on him gave him these sideways glares that he would ignore in favor of keeping watch over Tony, who looked like he had made a new suit of armor out of the medical equipment attached to him. Clint had sent a text to Fury after the initial round of 'what the hell happened to Stark' had been completed by the doctors.

Stark's been intubated, connected to 4 IVs. Not sure he'll pull through. - Hawk

What the hell happened? - Fury

Didn't eat, sleep, drink for we don't know how long yet. - Hawk

That man is a waste on this team. - Fury

What makes you say that? - Hawk

He is now on suicide watch courtesy of Shield - Fury

He has to live first for that to matter, sir. - Hawk

There was no response to his last text message. He resumed his watch of Stark's health, even though him sitting here was rather useless to the team.

* * *

Steve arrived at the hospital to find Tony. He was not pleased when he got to Tony's room.

"Barton, what happened? What did Stark do now?"

Clint looked up at the captain's voice.

"My best guess, sir, is that he just gave up. He just gave up, and no one bothered to notice. No one bothered to make sure he was still alive in his lab, and now we have to wait to see if he will live to get the full answer."

Steve was quiet as he thought about what Barton said. "I'm going to find Miss Potts. I wonder if she knew what was going on."

Steve turned and walked out of the hospital room. His shoulders tense as he went to find Tony's assistant.

* * *

Bruce, Thor, and Natasha stood silently in the living room of the Tower. It was tense and awkward but no one wanted to move. Someone's phone beeped and they all turned to find the noise.

Stark dying in hospital. Report. - Fury

It blinked on Natasha's screen as she fished it from her pocket. She looked up to meet the eyes of Thor and Bruce and cursed in russian under her breath.

Didn't know it was Stark, sir. Nothing to report. - Widow

Fix it - Fury

She let a sigh out and then looked back at her companions. "We need to go." There was a moment of still before they all went to the elevator to get to the ground as quick as possible.

Getting to the hospital was a longer process than they had planned and it took them nearly an hour for what should have only been a 15 minute trip by taxi. It took them another 15 minutes to get around the hospital staff to even find Tony's room. When they got there it was Bruce that reacted first.

"Oh. Tony what happened to you." He walked in and grabbed the medical report off the end of the bed to see what the hell was going on with the man that had changed his life.

"What is wrong with the Man of Iron?" Thor's voice is thankfully not at it's full booming volume, for which every teammate is grateful.

"He starved. Basically," Bruce's voice is quiet and harsh. "He didn't eat, or drink, and from some of these symptoms it doesn't look like he slept either for at least 5 days. How is he still alive?"

"I don't think dying was his plan." Barton returned.

They looked a little petulant at his answer. He ignored them to move back to his spot by the bed, sitting on the chair like it was a perch more than its original purpose.

* * *

Everything was hazy. He couldn't quite make out the noises around him, like he had missed something important but he couldn't figure out what it was. He knew that he had collapsed in his lab, and he thought he should be hungry but he can't feel anything, not really.

He can feel something like a light above him, a little light flickering just beyond his reach and all of the sudden he is back in Afghanistan holding onto a car battery for dear life. The panic that he felt then grips him again and he can't escape. He can't pull free of the memories and everything is hazy. He thinks he feels someone pressing firm hands into his shoulders and calling for a doctor.

Nothing makes sense, and everything blurs. He releases his control to whatever the hell is happening to him. And then he lets go of the thoughts and fades back into the darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello! Thank you for the reviews! I love you all! I promise I will update as often as my muse allows. And as a side note I noticed a few errors, and I am trying to catch them as soon as I can. If you notice seriously glaring errors please let me know. I will do my best to fix them. Again please R&R I love commentary. - Hunter!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, I do not make profit.**

* * *

Two days crawled past as Tony lay mostly dead in the hospital. There didn't seem to be any improvement in his health, the minor seizure had put the doctors and Clint all on edge. They couldn't really determine the cause and nothing seemed to have been damaged, but they wouldn't really know until Tony woke up, and the longer he was under, the less likely that was a possibility.

Clint couldn't quite figure out what was drawing him to stay with Stark. He was a member of the Avengers, yeah. But was making him stay? Why did he feel like he had nothing better to do than to sit right here and wait for Tony to wake, even if the chances were slim.

He was part of the team. That was what this was. There was no way that Clint was going to leave a teammate behind. Pepper was there as much as she could be, but she ran Stark Industries, he couldn't really blame her. She brought him food and decent coffee, and she would sit with Tony so he could shower and change. he hadn't seen much of the rest of the Avengers though, Cap showed up to receive a status report, give a disappointed look at Tony and then leave. Natasha hadn't shown up at all. Banner showed up, stared at the updated medical charts, blanched and then left, Clint was pretty sure that Banner hadn't meant to ignore Stark.

* * *

Natasha sat in Fury's office. Her face was closed off. Though in the fine lines of her body she was tense with anger.

"Why is he just sitting there watching Stark? The man was a liability to the team at any given time. Sure he saved New York from the missile. But one moment doesn't make up a past of fuck-ups."

"I am giving Agent Barton the job of handling Stark for the time being. I want to know what the hell his problem is, and why he thought suicide by starvation was a good plan." Fury looked at the stack of papers on his desk.

"Fuck, the paperwork for this is going to be ridiculous and the council is going to be less than pleased. I have a feeling they will shut the Avengers initiative down again, even if you are still all a team.

Natasha just shrugged. "It doesn't make a difference to me. I am just as happy with taking my normal type of mission, and I should think Hawkeye would too."

Fury just shrugged at her. "For the time being I have better things to be doing. Get the hell out of my office Romanoff." He turned away from her and back to the pile of things to complete on his desk.

"Tell Rogers I need to see him as soon as he can make it into the office." Fury didn't receive a reply but he knew that the woman had heard him. She knew better than to ignore him.

* * *

There was something different about this time. Pepper knew. Something had set off Tony. He hadn't been this self destructive since he knew that he was dying from the palladium poisoning. She couldn't believe the minds of the others. Tony had opened up the tower and yet they didn't even bother to check on him after he hadn't appeared in any way shape or form for 6 days.

She had a feeling that it was sheer dumb luck that Clint figured out how to find him in the lab. She knew that override codes were ignored once that alarm, when off but one had to know where the alarm was coming from. But one would think that if there was an alarm going off in the building, someone should check out was going on. Considering that this was a team of superheroes she really expected at least more than one person to show up to check on Tony.

Pepper checked her StarkPad and saw that it was about time for her to go give Clint a few moments to himself for a clean shower and some nice clothes. With a quick call to Happy she was headed out of Stark Industries and off to the hospital.

When she reached the room that Tony was in she let out a little sigh. "Agent Barton. I have clothes for you, and Happy has another coffee for you once you're out. Though I still think you should get some rest. Even if it's for just a couple of hours. My afternoon is free for today." She saw that he was debating it in the twitching of facial muscles. "Please Agent Barton. You are doing more than enough just sitting with him, don't fall out on him because you didn't get sleep either."

She watched as what little resolve he had about the issue left him. He gave a nod and quietly unfolded himself from the chair.

"Keep an eye on him. He had a seizure yesterday. They can't figure out the cause, but the doctor says to keep calm when it happens, they think that he could hear me talking him through it yesterday. Even though there isn't much to say to help a man having a seizure." Pepper swallowed audibly but nodded at him.

"I will do everything I can to help him. And we made sure that we have the best people looking after him through this, even though we aren't sure what the end result of this is going to be. Have they come any closer to figuring up when he might wake up?"

Clint shook his head. "They still haven't decided if he will wake up or not. They don't want to pull the plug because it hasn't been that long, but they say if he doesn't come out of it soon. Especially with the seizure they are not sure how much of Tony Stark will actually return to the land of the living. I should actually head back to the tower today. I am sure I will have to report to Fury as well. I should get back around 8 tonight." Pepper simply nodded and waved him out of the room. She slipped off her heels and curled into the chair that Clint had vacated to takeover the watching of Tony.

He checked the clock on the wall before he left. it was only 12, which gave him at least 4 hours to sleep before he had to go anywhere. He ran into Ton'y driver on the way out the door and sighed but relented when he pushed to drive Clint back to the tower. As soon as they reached the garage he was out of the car and out of the part of the lab that he had found Tony in as fast possible. He could deal with his own issues later. He took the elevator to his floor of the tower and stumbled out to find his room and collapse gratefully on the overly luxurious mattress that Stark had given him. Barton decided he would taken on the rest of the world after he had slept.


	4. Chapter 4

**hey! sorry it's taken a couple days. my muse has been quiet and i have been sleepy. here is a new chapter. please leave commentary. i love commentary. - Hunter!**

**"this chapter was brought to you by: 'Misguided Ghosts' - Paramore, 'Never Enough' - Five Finger Death Punch, and 'The Grey' - Icon for Hire"**

**disclaimer: I own nothing and I make no profit.**

* * *

Clint woke up slowly, which was an odd feeling for him. He rolled over and checked the clock and saw that he had only managed to sleep for a whopping 2 hours. Well, at least he could tell Pepper that he had gotten some sleep, he just wouldn't say for how long. With a sigh he got up and stretched before getting dressed and heading out into the main section of the common area for the group. He saw Banner passed out cold on the sofa and he walked past silently. He reached the kitchen and silently cursed when he saw the shock of bright red hair at the counter.

"You shouldn't be so attached to any of them Clint." Her voice was smooth and cool and grated against his nerves worse than any explosion.

"He doesn't deserve to be left behind." He looked at her, and watched as she grew tense at his words. He had been ordered to kill her when they met. He knew that would never happen. He wouldn't kill her now either, even though it would ease his temper.

"What does Fury think of this?"

"You don't already know? You live in his pocket Romanoff. I am handling Tony from here on out. No matter who gets reassigned to the Avengers Initiative." Clint shook his head and gave a small sigh. "I have to go talk to Fury and the Captain anyways. I am sure you will find some of your _skills _to be useful while I am in that meeting."

He stalked out of the kitchen and went straight to the elevator. He kept silent as he waited in the corner for the lift to stop at the first floor. He would walk there, get rid of some of the restless energy that had built up over the last few days. It was driving him crazy trying to think why Tony had done this to himself. Two days was the limit without showing his face elsewhere in the building. His computer would kick him out, or Pepper, or-now that he thought about it, Clint wasn't sure what brought the engineer out of his lab after two straight days.

There was something off here. Natasha had studied him for a long time before he was rejected from the initiative the first time. There was nothing in his record that said he would do something like this. There was too much work that he had to do and no one had the mental capacity to keep up with the work that he designed. Sure he was the classic description of narcissistic tendencies, but that wasn't what they had seen when push had come to shove.

There was more to this that Clint obviously didn't know. Someone that didn't know Tony would say that he had just found a new project and he wasn't ready to give up on it yet, and he dropped when he couldn't finish. Clint shook his head, there was no way it was a new project. Pepper would have shown up screaming and yelling about the fact that he needed to deal with the board meetings required for the new invention process. Which obviously hadn't happened.

He stepped around the busy people in the street without ever looking up. It wasn't difficult to weave through the bustling streets of New York without having to be any the wiser about who could see him. His thoughts continued to churn in his mind and his gut twisted with the thought that the friend he had made on the team could die because he had been forgotten.

* * *

Fury stared out the window of his office at the New York Shield outpost. He wouldn't be caught unawares by anything happening with the Avenger team again; this was just too much. "I should have never put him on the team."

"There are days that I could agree with you, sir. But after Manhattan he was more than you thought him to be. He was more than willing to make that play to save everyone's life." The second voice gave Fury little pause. The Captain's opinion still wasn't worth much to Fury, even if he was a war hero and America's first superhero.

"I know that you think that Captain Rogers, but there is little evidence to support that he changed from the volatile thing that he was before, even if he decided to make the play that saved Manhattan." Fury turned and moved to his desk.

"I don't have enough time in the world to complete the paperwork that Tony Stark causes." He sat down heavily and stared pointedly at Cap.

"Well I still don't see why he did this particularly. It was stupid and reckless and it could have ended his life, from what little I have heard I have seen that there hasn't been any improvement to his health." Steve sat down in the chair opposite Fury's desk. "Why are we meeting today anyways?"

"Because I have been ordered to report in." Barton's voice came from the doorway. Steve snapped his head to look at the agent, who seemed paler than the last time that he had seen him.

"What do you have for us Agent Barton?" Fury cut in.

"It doesn't look good, sir. The team of doctors haven't figured out what thy can do to bring him back. Dr. Banner has created a vitamin compound to help bring his body back to stable chemical levels quicker. He's had one seizure so far, and they are pretty adamant that whoever wakes up from that coma isn't going to be Tony Stark as we know him." Clint's voice was hard. He stared at the wall instead of Fury or the Captain.

"My Lord! What could have made him do this to himself?" Steve almost shouted. He was honestly surprised that the brash man he had met on the helicarrier could ever do something like this.

"I still say that he needs to be put on suicide watch once he wakes up Barton."

"Does anything I say ever actually make it through your ears, sir? I was pretty clear that they don't think he will live." Fed up before the meeting could really start; Clint spun on his heel and left.


	5. Chapter 5

**hey! i'm sorry i have been gone for so long. i try to work this in around work and getting actual sleep but it never seems to work the way I want it too. I promise that i will have something out soon. my muse has finally started kicking out scenes from later in the story and is starting to fill in the gaps in between.**

**And for all y'all don't know him. AntMan kicked me out of the writer's block for this chapter. so :D kisses for him when i see him next. **

**-Hunter!**

* * *

Pepper sat there, staring at the different monitors that surrounded Tony. There was so little hope, and she couldn't even bear the thought that her best friend might not live. Tony was her inconsiderate boss that cared too much and had too much going on in his head all the time. He tried so hard to make everything work for everyone all of the time and to just have a little fun in life. He was a brilliant man that didn't deserve to die.

She watched in silence at the tiny rise and fall of Tony's chest. There were so many tubes and wires attached to him that it was a daunting sight. The arc reactor was still glowing merrily, like there was nothing wrong with the man that it was there to protect. It was a blue beacon of light in the middle of a sea of death and the vague attempt to cling to life.

* * *

Tony felt the weird pull that brought him closer to the surface before everything seemed to swirl in front of him and he was sitting on the sofa in his living room again. With Stane looking at him with that crazed look; talking about what weapons he could have created if he only had the power to make them. Stane had paralyzed him, and then ripped out the thing that kept him alive. He had literally pulled the heart right out of his chest. The memory seemed to be cut through by this shrill shriek but he couldn't seem to move. Nothing was cooperating.

He cried out for anyone to hear him, he tried to keep awake; he felt like the arc reactor had been completely ripped away and it had put him into cardiac arrest. A sharp jerk and a flash of white shook him, and the edges of his memories blurred and he was getting pulled towards the blackness. He just let go, he wanted to get away from that feeling and he just let himself get pulled into the nothingness.

Another sharp jerk and Tony felt like he was flying. The blackness from before had disappeared, and he felt like he could just barely hear a steady beep in the distance. He tried to move closer to the noise but it slipped away from him every time he thought that he was close enough. He felt the blackness pulling back up around him, but it was softer this time, not the all-encompassing silence that had been there the first time.

* * *

Pepper let out a small scream as Tony started to convulse one the bed. She saw him jerk in his sleep and had rushed to his side.

"Tony!" He hadn't responded but the shaking had gotten worse. She thought that he was having another seizure but it was much worse. She tried to keep positive and she was whispering random facts about the company in his ear, nothing of great importance but something to stay focused and to hopefully keep Tony from slipping away when his body went completely rigid and the machines next to his bed started to shrill.

Doctors and nursing staff had come flooding into the room and deftly pushed her away from the bed and into the hallway. She wrapped her arms around herself and watched through teary eyes as the doctors got the crash cart set up and started to charge the defibrillator. The thought that Tony wouldn't make it scared her. The doctors were scrambling around his bed, she could see needles being pressed into the IV and the jerk of Tony's body as 5000 volts of electricity coursed through his body.

"Pepper!"

Pepper looked up to see Clint racing towards her from down the hallway.

"What happened?" His voice was filled with worry, though he tried to keep a calmer outward appearance.

She shook her head at him and pointed through the door. You could still hear the shrill of the heart rate monitor that had yet to show signs of life from Tony. He followed her finger and his breath caught in his chest.

"Oh no. This can't be happening." He voice shook and he wanted to shout at the world for this. He would figure out what had caused Tony to become like this and there would be hell to pay. He looked over and saw that Pepper seemed to be falling apart worse than he was. He wrapped his arms around her slim shoulders and pulled her to his chest letting her cry in the shelter of his embrace.

"He can't leave us. He just can't." Pepper's voice was tremulous, broken apart with the hitching of her breath as the sobs considered to shake her frame.

"We can hope, and we can pray for him Pep. We are here for him, and I hope that somehow he knows that too. Things can only get better from here." Clint's voice was soft and he kept his real thoughts to himself. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince with those words. The doctors had no positive things to say and it had only been a couple days, but he had this feeling that everything would work itself out.

* * *

It's funny how one things that when things will work themselves out, it never works that way. Somewhere in the universe a dark chuckle filled the empty air at the measly hope held in the heart of the Avenger that wanted his teammate better.


	6. Chapter 6

**hey! life got crazy busy again and my muse got super quiet. I do apologize. I am so sorry that I have been gone for forever. I am trying to get everything together and now that I am back in classes I am trying to balance all of my homework. I am thinking that the weekends will be my story days and I will do my best to get a chapter to y'all each week.**

**Sadly this chapter was not brought to you by AntMan, i haven't had the chance to bug him in a while but it was brought to you by the Minions of Despicable me, for whatever reason. And Beowulf, my english class is reading it, so it helped get me back on track with Unferth and Beowulf being jackasses to each other, reminded me of Tony.**

**-Hunter!**

* * *

Clint waited for weeks at Tony's bedside, hoping that something would change, he had switched from field duty to being a handler like Phil had been before the Loki incident. Clint wished that he was still around to talk to about this mess. There was so much going wrong and Clint wasn't sure how to make it right.

Tasha hasn't talked to him since he told her off in the kitchen the morning that Pepper forced him home to sleep ans shower. She still didn't think that his fierce protection of Tony was a good thing, and that having emotions for a teammate, even those of camaraderie were bad. She stayed tucked in Fury's pocket.

Steve, Clint didn't know what to think about the Captain. Some days he was all cool and collected that everything would turn out to be okay, and other days he was quiet and broody without the engineer there to fight with. The argument that Bruce had talked about from the heli-carrier was apparently more than what it seemed. Though Clint still didn't know what made it such a big deal. Everyone fights all the time on this team. What could have been said that would make the Cap act so weird?

Thor had returned to Asgard some time ago and Clint never really payed attention to the demigod anyways. He was loud and cumbersome and more than an idiot that Clint ever felt like dealing with. He had forgiven the man for not noticing Tony, at the very least he could say that he wasn't aware what the noise was, let alone what should have been done about it.

Bruce had figured out the vitamin serum, for lack of a better phrase, that had stabilized the rest of Tony's vitals. And Clint felt that the Hulk might have been part of the problem, though he could have sworn that Bruce had better control than that. It was the past now, and Bruce was doing everything that he could to help the medical staff figure out a way to bring Tony back to the land of the living. It wasn't much but Clint hoped that they could discover something soon. He sorely missed the banter from the caustic engineer.

He thumbed through the stack of files in his lap and laughed quietly. He had always rolled his eyes about the amount of paperwork that Fury always said Tony caused, and now that he was in charge of it he could only see the truth behind that statement. Clint let his eyes wander to the pale man in the bed. Tony's skin had gotten sallow and a little soft with its lack of sun exposure, and his muscles had started to waste away, not much but enough that when he recovered it was going to e a hard fight with the man about doing PT to get better the right way.

A beep sounded from his phone, he slipped the paperwork from his lap onto the arm of the chair and dug around to find his phone. He rifled through the stack of things next to the chair he was in and he couldn't find it. The phone beeped again and he thought he heard it coming from over by Tony. He stood and went to the bed and moved the blanket, but his phone wasn't there either. After another several minutes of searching he brandished the phone with a flourish, pulling it from the pillow case on the cot that he had crashed in the night before, when the nurses had let him crash in the room instead of making him leave.

You can head out. I am on my way - Pepper

How close are you? I don't like leaving him without knowing you're here - Hawk

I promise only 5 minutes away - Pepper

Can I wait those 5 til you get here? - Hawk

You need sleep. Go get some. - Pepper

But you're not here yet. - Hawk

I didn't ask you a question. - Pepper

You're not my boss. - Hawk

Thank you. - Pepper

That wasn't a compliment. - Hawk

And my statement still stands. - Pepper

Fine. You're only 5 out? - Hawk

Promise. - Pepper

Alright. I will be out by the time you get here. - Hawk

That better mean home and not on that awful cot - Pepper

But Pepper! - Hawk

Go to the tower and get real sleep. - Pepper

But - Hawk

But - Hawk

Pepper? - Hawk

Fine - Hawk

Good Boy. - Pepper

Clint rolled his eyes and put together the paperwork that he had brought with him from the office. Fury had been nice enough not to force him to take Phil's old office. He took one last glance at Tony before dimming the light and heading out, back towards the tower and his bed, that somehow didn't feel right to sleep in with the owner of the house out of commission.

* * *

Pepper let out a short scream as Happy slammed on the breaks to the limo.

"What happened?" She shouted.

Happy let down the partition and she could see the torn up street in front of her. It looked like something had crash landed on the road, and the asphalt was all torn to pieces, and there was a total stand still of every car around her.

"We have to get to Tony! Clint just left, he is by himself!" Pepper shouted, car horns were blaring and alarm sirens could be heard closing in on their street. Pepper let out a brief prayer that Clint was okay, and had heard about the incident and went back to the hospital.

* * *

As soon as Clint had made it the fifteen minute walk back to the Tower he passed out in his bed, dead to the world. He hadn't gotten a proper night's sleep since the incident in Manhattan. It seemed that total exhaustion had finally won out against his mind and he fell in a boneless heap on his mattress, in the deepest sleep that he had felt in ages. He never heard his phone going off with Pepper's ringtone or the alert through the tower for the Avengers to assemble.

* * *

Brown eyes opened slowly and their owner hissed at the light that filled the room. His eyes slammed shut and he struggle a bit against all of the things attached to him. He felt like death warmed over. How long had he been iout? He looked around his hospital room and his heart hardened at the sight of an empty pristine room. He sat up then, and started to pull the tubing off of his body. He made sure to pull everything but the heart monitor pads because he knew those would send a crash cart team into his room and he wanted that to be the last of his worries.

He turned slowly and got out of the bed, moving towards the monitor so that it would not disconnect and had to catch himself and fall backwards on the mattress. Seriously, how long had he been out for? He huffed a few breaths and then sat up again. He reached for the medical chart that was placed at the end of his bed.

With the chart in hand he moved back towards the head of the bed and flipped it open. The date caught him first. A month. He had been gone for a month and there was no one here. No one cared. He thought he could remember glimpses of voices but they must have been his doctors since it was obvious that his team mates had no regards for his life. His hands shook with small tremors and he glared at them as the clipboard slipped from between his fingers.

He couldn't stay here, not with everyone around that obviously didn't give a shit about his life. He gathered the will to move slowly because he figured that he wouldn't be going anywhere quickly. And then he hit the nurse button. He waited and when he saw the woman he glared and then tried to speak.

"I need to leave." It came out more like "I-e-oo-e" His voice was rusty with disuse and he glared even harder at the nurse that had looked at him with this look of wonder and horror all at once.

Tony angrily shook his head and then searched the bedside table for a pen. It took him a minute to get his hand to wrap around the pen properly. _I need to leave. _His letters were shaky but they were still the words that needed to be stated.

"But sir you just came out of a coma. You are in no condition to be going anywhere. It's a miracle that you pulled through with this much brain function. There is no way that we can let you out of the hospital without running tests first to make sure there was no lasting damage." She looked at him with these big eyes and he glared a little bit stronger in her direction.

_I wasn't asking you if I may. I was stating a must. Bring me the AMA forms._

"Sir, I can't do that. I can't let you leave right after you come from a coma. Let me page your doctor and we can start the tests to check on your brain functionality and see what he says from there." The nurse glanced at him and then walked out of the room. Tony found a small pile of clothes by the door, it was his favorite t-shirt and a pair of worn jeans, folded neatly on the dresser by the door. It took him a good few minutes to get his clothes on and the hospital gown off and he wondered what kind of hospital this was if no one was back yet. He turned into the hallway and kept his head down as he leaned against the wall to assist his pained walking.

He figured that the nurses would stop someone who just looked tired and a little drunk walking through the hallways. It was at least still during visiting hours so he could use that to his advantage. He couldn't quite keep track of how long it had taken him to do anything, he was still disoriented but he refused to just stop and give in to the hospital's wishes. It wasn't what he felt like doing so he wasn't going to do it. He made it to the little waiting room that was at the junction of the hallways by the elevator and sat for a few moments, hoping to gain his breath before he continued his escape.

He gathered what little strength he had and moved on towards his escape of the hospital. He took the elevator down to the first floor and shuffled out the front door, the security guards didn't even blink in his direction as he passed their station. He found an ATM not to far down the street and used his usual genius to use the number pad to hack the ATM and get a couple hundred in loose cash from one of his accounts and slipped away through the crowd hailing a cab and heading for the airport, hoping that he could make it out to Malibu before anyone really got the chance to figure out that something was wrong.


End file.
